Blood
by Serpa.Sas
Summary: Lumen isn't sure her darkness of really gone. A collection of ways that Lumen ends up going back.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Dexter**

There was something great about blood.

After Miami, after her darkness was gone, after they were all dead, the sight of blood made her breath catch.

Her old friends noticed it, of course. They were good friends. One's that had been sick with worry when she had disappeared, one's that had started a Facebook group dedicated to finding her. It had thirty followers when she got back home. Five of them she didn't know. Lumen wasn't sure it would have ever actually found her. Not if she didn't want to be found.

Dexter was good at hiding.

But she wasn't thinking about him. Or knives. Or plastic wrap. Or duct tape. Or blood...

No, she didn't have any darkness left.

"Jesus Christ, eh, Lumen?" Rebecca Smallwood, a friend of Lumen's for over a decade, said.

They were sitting in a small coffee shop, Lumen intently eating a bagel, Becca reading a newspaper.

"What?" Lumen asked after swallowing.

"A girl was found dead. Beaten to death. They guy who killed her got off because of a problem with the warrant." she shook her head in disgust. "The legal system is so screwed."

"How do you know he did it?" Lumen asked.

"Uh, they had all kinds of evidence. Look! Read the article!" Becca tried to shove the paper in her face. Luman batted it away.

"Stop that. It's too depressing. I'm trying to eat breakfast, I don't need stories about dead girls at breakfast." Even as she protested, her mind was already making the list of everything she would need. Plastic wrap, duct tape, garbage bags, a knife, a saw-

No. No, that wouldn't do. She didn't have anymore darkness. None.

Lumen stood up suddenly, trying to control her breathing. Becca looked at her curiously. "Bathroom," she explained quickly, making her way towards it.

Once she reached the bathroom, she closed the door, quickly checking the stalls for occupants before she slid the lock into place, blocking everyone out, then opened her phone, pushing in his number.

It called Dexter.

Dexter, as it so happened, was in the middle of something. The man currently lying in front of him was whimpering quietly, the two young woman that were now dead by his hand's pictures taped to the wall in his line of sight.

Dexter turned towards the ringing phone, pointing his shiny knife at the man. "Be quiet well I answer this, or I will cut out your eyeballs." the man was quiet. Dexter flipped open his phone without looking at the ID. "Hello?"

Lumen inhaled deeply. "Dexter. It's- me."

"Lumen," Dexter exhaled her name like a prayer to a god he didn't believe in.

"Dexter, are you busy right now? I kind of need to... talk."

"I'm just in the middle of a project, but it can wait."

Lumen smiled. "Project like you're planning to kill someone, or project like you have someone on your table right now?"

Dexter chuckled. "The second."

"What he do?" she wondered.

Dexter looked at the two woman, both blonde, both dead. "He killed two women. Left their bodies to be eaten by alligators."

"Say goodbye for me." Lumen frowned.

"I will." Dexter paused. "What do you need to talk about?"

Lumen sighed. "I've been having a... problem." she cleared her throat. "I've been having... thoughts... about killing."

Dexter hesitated. "Uh huh?"

"I just... I feel, like, maybe my darkness isn't all the way gone. Like maybe I need to, I don't know, get justice for more people? I'm not the only one that's ever been hurt."

Dexter nodded, then remembered she couldn't see that. "Yeah," he agreed.

"I think, sometimes, that the only reason I left was because Deb almost caught us." Lumen spat out quickly. "I don't think I would have left if that didn't happen."

Dexter hesitated again. "Well, you know, she hasn't almost caught me since then. No one has."

"Hmm." Lumen said.

Dexter cleared his throat in a very un-Dexter like way. "And, you know, Harrison really missed you. I'm sure, he would, ah- love to see you again."

Lumen shut her eyes against the tears that were gathering. She couldn't tell if they were happy or relieved. "Maybe I'll have to stop by Miami soon."

"Harrison-" Dexter paused. "_I _would like that."

"I would like that too."

They both stood in silence, separated by distance but connected by their phones.

"Well, I guess I should end this guy." Dexter finally said.

"Do you mind- if I listen? God, that sounds really weird..." Lumen trailed off.

Dexter smiled. "No problem." he set the phone down and got to work, and Lumen shut her eyes and imagined the blood.

**R&R?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own this. What are you talking about, someone might think I own Dexter? I don't.**

"Lumen?"

Lumen paused at the sound of her mothers voice calling her name coming from her room.

Yes, she was living with her parents. With no job, her ex-fiancee travelling the world, and her serial-killing savour in Miami, she didn't exactly have anywhere else to go.

"Yeah, mom?" Lumen replied as she turned into her room- to find her mother clutching her most prized possessions between pinched fingers, the sunlight filtering through the window, hitting the glass slides, and making red-tinged shadows on the far wall.

"What are these?" her mother asks, and Lumen freezes for a moment before she rushes across her room to grab the blood slides away from her mother and clutch them close to her chest.

"Nothing." Lumen realizes after the word leaves her mouth that her reaction cancels it out.

"Lumen..." her mother slips into her strict voice, the one that made a younger Lumen confess whatever bad thing she had done.

But this was infinitely different, and Lumen knew that. Breaking a vase and killing people were very far away from each other on the scale of bad.

Besides, what would she say? 'Oh, these? They're just trophies from when I teamed up with a serial killer to take revenge on the group of men that abducted, tortured, and raped me and killed twelve other girls'. Yeah. That might not go over so well.

So instead she frowns and says, "They were gifts."

Her mother copies her frown and picks up a pair of leather gloves and a knife from her daughters dresser "Were these gifts too?"

Lumen almost laughs. "Actually, yes. Those _were_ gifts."

"And who is giving you weapons, gloves, and blood slides as gifts?"

Lumen's humour disappears as quickly as it came. "Who _was _giving me gifts," she corrects. "would be a friend I made in Miami."

Her mothers frown changes from suspicious to sad. "Oh. Sweetie-"

"Never mind." Lumen dismisses the apology that she knew would come next. Well she hadn't told her mother- or anyone- much about her time in Miami, the little she had told had made most draw the conclusion that she had met someone, fallen for them, and had her heart broken.

"Honey-" her mother tried again.

"Mom-" Lumen interrupted her.

"Lumen," her mother cut her off sharply. "Listen."

Lumen pursed her lips together tightly to keep herself from speaking.

"I don't know what happened in Miami- since you've barely spoken a word about it- but the man you met there- If I know anything, its that you cared about him. Care about him."

At this point she looked to her daughter for confirmation.

"I love him." Lumen said quietly, proud that she was able to keep her voice from cracking.

"Then why are you here?" her mothers voice was as quiet as hers.

"Its hard to explain."

Her mother raised a brow, her eyes flicking from the four 'gifts' to her daughters face. "Try."

Lumen ran a hard through her hair, long blonde strands catching on her fingers and floating down to catch her shirt and stick as she sat down on her bed wearily and considered how to lie well telling the truth.

"I changed. What had drawn us together in the first place, I didn't have it anymore. He still did. When I left, I couldn't imagine anyway that we would work out."

The older woman watched her for a long moment. "And now?"

The question takes Lumen off guard. "What?"

"You said 'when you left, you couldn't imagine anyway that it would work'. What about now? Do you still think that it couldn't work?"

Lumen closes her eyes. Automatically, as if on instinct, she draws up an image of Dexter, bloody knife and body in front of him. And she sees herself taking the blade from him, and ending the killer strapped down with plastic wrap. She sees the face of the man, and even though it isn't one that hurt her, she still wants to do this in real life, not just in her mind.

And she realizes; her darkness was never gone. It was just hiding.

"Well, Lumen? Are you going to answer me?" her mother's voice interrupts her line of thought.

"Now, I think... that maybe I didn't change. I just thought I had."

Her mom nods swiftly. "Then go back to him. If you love him like you say, and you think it could work, then go to Miami and tell him you were wrong."

Lumen gulps. "He's probably moved on." she says quietly.

"Its been two weeks. I don't think anyone could get over you in two weeks." she grabbed her daughters hand tightly. "Go back."

And in that moment, Lumen knew- she was going back. Back to Miami, back to Dexter, back to Harrison, and back to plastic wrap and garbage bags.

The next morning, she was in her car, on the passenger seat her bag, filled with clothing, her kill suit, a knife, a pair of gloves, and two blood slides.

She was heading towards Miami. She was going back.

**So, I guess my one shot is going to be a collection of one shots, all ways that Lumen ends up going back to Miami. Should be interesting.**

**R&R?**


End file.
